SURVIVING IN LIMBO: AN INSIGHT INTO SLOVENIA'S INFORMAL PRIVATE RENTED HOUSING SECTOR

While the private rented sector has been abundantly discussed in Western European countries, its role and manner of functioning in the post-socialist Central and Eastern European countries have been inadequately addressed in the scholarly discourse. This situation is reflected in the all too evident scarcity of internationally accessible academic deliberations on the characteristics of the sector in the region. In the majority of these countries, the private rented sector operates as an unregulated informal housing tenure, a fact that renders difficult obtaining accurate information about its nature characteristics and size. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this literature gap by presenting a detailed insight into the operation of the private rented market in one of the postsocialist Central and Eastern European countries. This is done by presenting the results of a survey with which we investigated the nature and manner of functioning of the private rented sector in Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. Contrary to what might be expected of an inadequately regulated activity, the results of the survey revealed several surprising positive characteristics. These positive revelations have led us to pose the question, in the conclusion, whether there is any need, after all, for the regulation of the country's private rented sector.